There are not many prettier sights than that of the oyster-fleet, on a sunny day; the red-brown sails of the ten- to twenty-ton yawls going in stately procession over these shallow waters. They come back with uncounted millions of “brood” for laying down in this restricted pasture off Whitstable, or with mature oysters for the markets. In the season, which extends by Act of Parliament from August 5th to May 14th, as many as 200,000 “natives” are despatched from Whitstable in a day; and great is the activity to be observed here in that time, on the foreshore, and in the wooden shanties where they are scrubbed clean and packed carefully in barrels. Be sure, the Whitstable folk will impress upon you that there is no competition possible with the local specialty.
Surely he must have been one of these local patriots who originally propounded this excruciating conundrum: “What is the difference between a Whitstable oyster and a bad one?” the answer being, “One is a native, the other a settler!”
Among other efforts on this subject this may be recalled: “Why is an oyster the greatest curiosity in the world?” “Because you have to take it out of its bed before you can tuck it in.”
One quaint old feature of Whitstable beach is the unconventional lighthouse, cobbled up out of some old copperas-works. It makes not a bad picture, looking out across the Swale, with the cliffs of Warden Point beyond, and the oyster-dredging fleet in between. At low water the shallow channel displays a long rocky ridge called the “Street Stones,” supposed to be the remains of a Roman causeway.
At the farther end of Whitstable, and giving character to an otherwise featureless shore, is the wooded bluff of Tankerton, the growing residential suburb that Whitstable is at last throwing off. New roads strike through it, and there are fond hopes that the place will become a great seaside resort; but it has hitherto been slow in developing. Meanwhile, the cliff-top--a very modest cliff-top though it be-- affords the best view of the “Street Stones” and of the crowded flotilla of the oyster-fleet. The coast-line through the hamlet of Swalecliffe, and on to and through Herne Bay, is protected from wastage by the sea by serried ranks of closely-set wooden groynes, erected in the shingle at enormous expense and looking, in the long perspective, like gigantic combs.
